The Nursing programme and producing competent, qualified nurses

Participants proclaimed that when students portrayed the ability to demonstrate trustworthy characteristics and maintained the basic professional virtues such as professional behaviour, it resulted in trust in newly qualified professionals.

3.5.3.1 Views of the newly registered professional nurse

Participants viewed that trustworthiness of students after they had completed the programme indicated that they would be competent professional nurses. They would be confident and have the ability to manage in the clinical environment.

“I know the students that I trained that when there is a situation that needs their attention they will be able to deal with the situation, for example, resuscitation, for attending to handling the clients and all these things when I am not there. I am confident that they will do it because I have trained them. They will be doing it; they will be confident. If I can get that security in myself that to say Yes ... I am confident this is what I trained, this is the product I expect. Then I’ll be fine.” (B2) “And I think if you can have this kind of student from the first day after completing his or her training. Then you can put the student in the ward and say, the ward is yours, and then you are confident that this student is actually going to deal with it one two three, and do the correct things.” (C1)

In contrast with the positive views of participants, concerns were raised that some students did not learn with insight and therefore did not internalise procedures for future application in the practice. Participants viewed that some students sometimes only focused in passing and no real learning actually took place.

“Another thing in terms of the clinical training: we also do not trust our product in the sense that even if they have the checklist, and they know the procedure that is expected, they do not really practise the checklist, do not gain the skill. They only sort of cram them, because they know you are coming and you are assessing them, but they do not really have that thing of applying this thing for the profession for the future as a professional nurse. They just do it to pass the checklist. So that is why we do not really trust that they will be independent practitioners at the end of the day, because they sort of cram the work. They forget it. When you try to relate to it some other day, they do not even remember.” (B1)

The concerns mentioned by the participants regarding educators’ trust in newly registered professionals were ambivalent. Participants viewed that students might not be fully competent after completion of their training, but that they would have the ability to build on their basic education and training to be competent as a professional nurse. A lack of clinical exposure caused a lack of confidence in the newly professional. Participants viewed that after students had completed their programme, they should trust their education and training. After a period of clinical exposure, they would be confident and fully functional and trusted as a professional.

“Yes, and if we go back to the trust of a student, I think they also place trust in the student that when they leave here, well ... ok we will not be this, this, how shall I say, 100% functional sister, but that they can survive and function in different circumstances. They must then also trust their training. There we eventually come to what I said: Yes, they must trust their training so that when they leave here, they feel I have not been left to fend for myself, but have received the required information, I must begin to trust myself.” (D1)

“During their studies there is not enough exposure. But I can see they become more confident once they are in the clinical area for two or three years. So you see they become more confident, because when I come in the clinical area I see them there and they will say ... ‘At least we understand now that we know exactly what we are now doing’.” (B2)

A participant mentioned that the basic programme of nursing developed life-long learning in students, and encouraged them to be dynamic and seek the most recent information and technological applications in nursing.

“They must commit to become competent, whatever they do, in the area where they find themselves. Whether it be wounds, or injections, or giving of injections, they must always try to be competent and execute the action perfectly. Also, they should acquire the required information about the latest techniques and let’s say about anything that changes, such as TB. So they must want to be that life-long learner. To look for and share new information and then also to display professionalism in terms of courteousness, where the patient is first - the patients’ needs and safety are first.” (D1)

Bencsik and Machova (2016:45) affirm that trust in an innovative learning environment with teamwork, and creativity stimulates independence and life-long learning (Liberska & Farnicka 2014:13) if the programme promotes a holistic approach to life-long knowledge acquisition.

Life-long learners increase their competence in nursing, and trust in the professional nurse that is committed to life-long learning is enhanced. Participants aired different views about trust in the outcome of the students they trained – views that ranged between confident feelings and ambivalence about the abilities of the students. They

expressed that a student who completed the programme should be motivated to be a life-long learner. These views of their product reflected on the quality of the programme taught in the NEIs.

3.5.3.2 Confidence in the nursing education

Participants viewed that students who trusted the programme, the teaching they received and learning they acquired would exit with self-trust and confidence to the nursing career and become the future leaders in nursing. When educators are convinced that the students have self-trust and confidence, it increases interpersonal trusting relationships between the educators and students. The transfer of knowledge, skills and attitudes to students during teaching and training transforms students and they might be the future leaders and mentors in nursing.

“The student who has been raised with trust will definitely exit with the right information and more confidence as opposed to someone who has just been left and does not know where to and has to struggle to develop her own self-image and her confidence is non-existing. You will find that they then go and do the same when they work with students or with the people. However, if they have had a good trust relationship with their lecturers and mentors, they transfer the same to wherever they are going. They will then become their own leaders of note, or type of leaders.” (D1)

Participants indicated that not all the students entered the programme for the correct reasons. Some students entered for the financial benefits due to their social demands and stressors. These reasons caused a lack of trust in the type of students which were selected.

“And the other thing is: they come here and they come here for money, because most of our kids are from very poor families. Some of them have parents - they do have parents, but there are those ones whose parents think: ‘You must finish and take care of us’. And then they come here and there is a bursary, a stipend or whatever they call it, and then the parent is going to use that; it creates such a problem. It is just for money for some of the students.” (A2)

Mckie, Baguley, Guthrie, Jackson, Kirkpatrick et al (2012:260) construe that the highlighting of clinical wisdom in curriculums for nursing education contributes to enhancement in clinical practice. Education and training transform students holistically in their personal and professionals life. When students are confident that they have benefited from the education and training of the programme and can be a professional nurse, they experience that they are trusted by different persons. These trust experiences have a positive outcome on the students’ performances and views about nursing.